This investigation of the overwhelming appeal of quantification in the modern world discusses the development of cultural meanings of objectivity over two centuries. How are we to account for the current prestige and power of quantitative methods? The usual answer is that quantification is seen as desirable in social and economic investigation as a result of its successes in the study of nature. Theodore Porter is not content with this. Why should the kind of success achieved in the study of stars, molecules, or cells be an attractive model for research on human societies? he asks. And, indeed, how should we understand the pervasiveness of quantification in the sciences of nature? In his view, we should look in the reverse direction: comprehending the attractions of quantification in business, government, and social research will teach us something new about its role in psychology, physics, and medicine.
Drawing on a wide range of examples from the laboratory and from the worlds of accounting, insurance, cost-benefit analysis, and civil engineering, Porter shows that it is "exactly wrong" to interpret the drive for quantitative rigor as inherent somehow in the activity of science except where political and social pressures force compromise. Instead, quantification grows from attempts to develop a strategy of impersonality in response to pressures from outside. Objectivity derives its impetus from cultural contexts, quantification becoming most important where elites are weak, where private negotiation is suspect, and where trust is in short supply.
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感覺整本書的敘述結構可以做得更清楚的，現在讀下來感覺就是我就一個大觀點然後不停地用曆史上的例子重復這個觀點，掩蓋瞭曆史本身的細節和復雜。Objectivity這個概念也是躲躲閃閃地沒說清楚。
评分《相信數字——科學和公共生活中對客觀性的追求》是曆史學傢Porter的重要作品。作者通過研究19世紀的英國精算師，法國工程師以及20世紀的美國會計師和美國工程師，展示瞭不同政治文化下人們是怎麼對待數字的，是有所保留（英法）還是完全擁抱（美）。裏麵的曆史細節十分詳盡。
评分Trust in Ted Porter
评分Objectivity is not about truth; it’s about trust.詳述瞭美英法不同的擁抱numbers的過程，以及不同的精英階層各異的適應方式，最後呼應ezrahi認為科技/量化是現代民主的必要條件之一，即使科學傢群體是一個沒怎麼少瞭政治和社會化的職業圈子。
评分《相信數字——科學和公共生活中對客觀性的追求》是曆史學傢Porter的重要作品。作者通過研究19世紀的英國精算師，法國工程師以及20世紀的美國會計師和美國工程師，展示瞭不同政治文化下人們是怎麼對待數字的，是有所保留（英法）還是完全擁抱（美）。裏麵的曆史細節十分詳盡。
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